


The Melancholy of Tohno Shiki

by KChasm



Category: Tsukihime, 涼宮ハルヒ | Suzumiya Haruhi - All Media Types
Genre: (I suspect), Canon-Typical Violence, Excessive tag commentary as a form of aposematism, F/M, Japanese Honorifics, Just not a good fic in a variety of ways, Low quality, Minor Editing, Out of Character, Stilted narration mimicking amateur fan translations, Uploaded solely for completion's sake, reupload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 01:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10322147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChasm/pseuds/KChasm
Summary: When did I start believing in Santa Claus?(Originally uploaded 2007, FFN.)





	

When did I start believing in Santa Claus? To someone else, this wouldn't be a very important question. As for myself, from the very beginning of my life, I "knew" that there was no such person as Santa. It was obvious even to the child that I was that the Santa who appeared at my preschool Christmas party was only a man dressed up in a costume.

Eventually, I was able to tell myself without hesitation that there were no such things as aliens, time-travelers, ghosts, monsters, espers, mages, and vampires. But still, being young and foolish, I couldn't help but wish that all these things could actually exist. On its own, my life wasn't boring at all—I only naively wished for some new experience to occur.

When I was eight years old, I was in an accident.

When I asked my doctor about the strange lines that seemed to cover the room in a dark web, he only frowned and called a nurse to check my eyes. In the end, they couldn't find anything wrong with them.

When I dragged the blade of a fruit knife along a line on the bed, it cleanly broke in two along it. They took the knife away from me after that.

When I was eight years old, I met my Sensei.

When I was eight years old, I realized for the first time that things like magic and eyes that could see the death of things might exist.

When I was eight years old, I realized that I knew nothing at all.

Because, if such things could exist, who could say that things like Santa Claus didn't as well?

After that day, I stopped wishing for aliens, time travelers, sliders, and espers—

* * *

And so, years passed.

My family never came back for me, or even visited me in the hospital. In the end, it was ordered that I would stay with the Tsuruya family, some distant relatives of mine who lived about 400 kilometers away, leaving behind my sister, Akiha.

The Tsuruyas began in earnest their job of looking after me, all but adopting me as part of the family. Making the most effort was the Tsuruya heir, one year my elder, who took it as her job to happily tend over me as my "dear onee-san". Though most of the attention made me more uncomfortable than anything else, I couldn't help but admire the way in which she had dealt with the disruption that must have dropped into her life without warning.

And my life continued, happily and monotonously—except, on the day that I began my enrollment at the senior high school—

"My name is Suzumiya Haruhi. I graduated from East Junior High. Normal humans don't interest me. If anyone here is an alien, a time traveler, slider, or an esper, then come find me! That is all."

That was how I met her. Before that point, there was no doubt to me that I would live a relatively normal life. But from the moment of her outlandish request, I was walking upon a thin tightrope.

As it so happened, her desk was right behind mine. It was my duty to impart the little wisdom I knew—so I believed. So the next day, before homeroom, I attempted to begin a conversation.

"What you said...it's dangerous, isn't it?"

Not caring about greetings or names, I started my admonishment. We probably wouldn't ever talk to each other ever again after this, anyway, so names were meaningless. I continued without waiting for a response.

"If you really wish for something exciting to happen to you, it surely will."

Her eyes widened just a little, and she seemed happy, if only for an instant. I proceeded to do my best to crush this happiness.

"But, once something exciting does happen, it's possible you might regret it. I should know."

I saw her expression turn to one of confusion and irritation before I turned again in my seat to face the front of the classroom.

Maybe if I had ignored her, I still would have lived the rest of my life normally. But, as soon as I opened my mouth to warn her, I was doomed.

* * *

From then on, I only dug myself deeper, until the hole I was in was impossible to climb out of.

The transformation of my status at that school wasn't instantaneous, of course. The degradation of my character in my classmates' eyes, though, began when Suzumiya began to talk to me—on her own.

"Hey." She bounced a pink rubber eraser off the back of my head. "Hey, Kyon."

Kyon would be me, by the way. I got the nickname innocently enough, by bumping into the little sister of one of my classmates while walking from school. For whatever reason, she called me "Kyon"—probably because I'd failed to tell her my real name. The classmate, who was watching over her, found it hilarious and began to call me by that name at school. After that, everyone seemed to follow his lead.

I'm pretty sure even the teachers have forgotten my real name by now. It's an irritating name, and I hate it.

I turned my head. "Yeah?"

"You said 'I should know,' didn't you?"

I twisted my face. "What are you talking about?"

She suddenly grinned. Refusing to answer my question, she went on:

"Have you ever seen any aliens?"

Calmly, but with a deadly smile on her face, Haruhi asked me this question. I answered with the truth.

"No."

Her face fell slightly, but she continued her barrage. "In that case, are you a time traveler?"

"No."

"A slider?"

"No." I turned my back to Haruhi, trying to ignore her. It didn't work.

"An esper?"

"Of course not!" Maybe that was a lie, though. The power I could have by removing my glasses—did that make me an esper? An esper was only a person who had some sort of power that came from his mind. When I had been young, something had changed in my mind, allowing me to see the deaths of things. So—

The train of thought didn't matter to me, so I terminated it. I wasn't at all planning on taking my glasses off, anyway.

Later that day, Asakura Ryouko approached me. "It's nice to see that Suzumiya-san is talking to somebody." she said.

Asakura was another girl in my homeroom, seemingly infinitely different than Haruhi. She was the sort of good person who would try her honest best to make friends with anybody, no matter how detestable. She did everything with a sort of inborn passion, and a beaming smile that cheered up those around her could always be found on her face. To say that nearly everyone, including me, admired Asakura would not be an exaggeration.

"I don't suppose you could put in a good word about me the next time you talk to her, Kyon-kun?" she asked, half joking.

I shrugged. "I'm not really sure why she was talking to me."

"Oh, well, that's too bad."

We chatted friendlily for some time until lunch was over.

* * *

"Kyon. Hey, Kyon!"

I turned around in my seat. Another day had passed, and Haruhi was talking to me yet again. "Yeah?"

I really didn't like her smile at all. It was the sort of smile that belonged on a predator, like a shark or a cougar. Suddenly, she flung a red object at my forehead.

"Ow!" The object rebounded, and she caught it with the same hand she had used to throw it, looking slightly put out. I peered over at her hands. "Was that a magnet?"

She grumbled and didn't answer, and so I turned my attention once again to the front of the classroom.

Something poked at the back of my neck. It was annoying, but it didn't hurt, so I did my best to ignore it, hoping Haruhi would stop once she saw that I was refusing to react. She was persistent, however. Finally, growing tired of her childish antics, I grabbed the object she was using to prod me in one swift motion.

I looked at it. It was a foreign coin. On one side of it, the profile of a woman's face looked to the right, surrounded by the words "ELIZABETH II" and "D. G. REGINA."

"Is the woman named Elizabeth or Regina?" I muttered to myself, then yelled "Hey!" as the coin was slapped out of my hand. While I had been inspecting it, Haruhi had apparently left her desk. She plucked the coin out of the air gracefully, then glared at me, seemingly angry for some reason.

"What were you poking me for, anyway?" I asked.

"To see if you're some sort of monster that reacts to silver, of course!" she snorted.

"And I suppose the magnet was something similar, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." She looked out the window, signaling an end to the conversation.

* * *

"What is that, some sort of gun?" It wasn't a gun, of course. It was colored yellow and made of plastic. Yet, from the way she was holding it, I had a feeling that I would be better if it was an actual gun.

Haruhi smiled her scary smile. "This—" she said proudly, pointing the device up in the air with both hands like some hero off a movie poster. "—is a hand-held infrared temperature sensor!" And with that, she went back to pointing it back at her target, studying the readings intently.

What I couldn't understand was: why was she pointing it at me?

* * *

"Look—" I said exasperatedly, batting away the divining rod Haruhi was sticking in my face. "If you want to do this 'paranormal' sort of thing, why don't you join—" I blurted out the first club that came to my mind. "the Supernatural Study Group."

Haruhi's face darkened. "The Supernatural Study Group? They're all a bunch of occult maniacs." And then, she went back to waving that divining rod around my head.

"Well, then why don't you start your own?"

And with those words, I unleashed a terror upon the world.

It soon became clear that not only had Haruhi taken my suggestion clearly, she had also interpreted it as me expressing a desire to join a club of her making myself, because the next thing I knew, Haruhi was dragging me about the school, entirely excited. I could only watch, stunned, as she stole the Literature Club clubroom—and its sole member, Nagato Yuki.

Nagato Yuki was a bit scary, actually. Whenever I tried to talk to her, I'd get succinct, straight-to-the-point responses, and that was if I was lucky. She always had her head buried in a book, though, so maybe she was only that way because she wanted to focus on her reading.

Just as I was talking to her, Haruhi dragged in an upperclassman she had literally kidnapped. Asahina Mikuru was, to put it briefly, a girl who seemed to constantly be close to tears. She was rather nice-looking, to be honest. Her attractiveness mixed with her faint-heartedness gave me an almost irresistible urge to protect her—which was the very reason Haruhi had abducted her, actually. Moe appeal, in short.

But this action of Haruhi's was too much. Asahina might have been too afraid of Haruhi to resist when she groped her, but I could leave anytime I wanted—so I did. Haruhi spotted me when I was halfway out the door. "Hey, Kyon—where are you going?" she called.

I looked back at her for a moment. She was still carrying out her lewd actions, even as she stared at me. Asahina looked ready to burst into tears. "I'd rather not be part of a club like this," I replied, and left.

* * *

"I heard that you quit Suzumiya-san's club, Kyon-kun."

I looked up at Asakura Ryouko curiously. "Yeah, that's true." Days later, Haruhi still refused to talk to me. I suspected that she believed the fault entirely mine.

Asakura smiled at me, and there was something strange in her expression. It was her normal, cheery smile—and yet, it wasn't. There was a trace of some negative emotion in it. It could have been anything from disapproval to depression. I couldn't tell. It was too painful to look at for too long, so I pretended to study the faked wood grain on my desk.

"You're really her only friend. Don't you think you ought to stay by her?"

"I was never really her friend. I just happened to sit in front of her."

Asakura's mouth wavered between a smile and a frown.

* * *

"I am what you call an esper. That's right, I possess paranormal powers." The transfer student, Koizumi Itsuki, said this to me over a cup of coffee. It was a little surprising, but such people existed, didn't they? Sooner or later, I would have been bound to meet one.

"Hm," I responded noncommittally.

"I'd have preferred not to transfer to this school so suddenly, but there has been a change in circumstances." While he was speaking, I took a large gulp of my coffee. It didn't have enough sugar. "I never thought those two girls would have approached Suzumiya Haruhi so quickly already. Before that, they had always been silently observing her."

I grabbed a sugar packet and began to tear it open. "You mean Nagato Yuki and Asahina Mikuru?"

He answered in the affirmative.

"Hm," I responded.

"The 'Organization' I am under the supervision of wishes to protect Suzumiya-san from danger." He paused. The mention of an 'Organization' didn't surprise me that much, either. If espers existed, there was bound to be an organization of them, too. I poured the contents of my sugar packet into my coffee and watched as the drink turned a slightly lighter brown.

"Hm," I responded. I couldn't help but think I was perhaps making Kozumi's explanation a little difficult by not reacting to his cues. Well, what did he want me to say, exactly?

"Just as you have guessed, the 'Organization' was founded three years ago, and their priority is to observe Suzumiya Haruhi. To put it bluntly, they exist solely to observe Suzumiya Haruhi. I'm sure you understand by now? I'm not the only 'Organization' member here in this school. There have already been a number who have infiltrated here before me; I've just been temporarily transferred here to assist them."

Well, that sort of thing was the point of a secret organization, wasn't it? I ruminated on how best to convey my lack of interest, and finally settled on "Hm."

My coffee still tasted too bitter. Meanwhile, Koizumi talked and talked, trying to explain many things. To be honest, it was all quite boring, so I'll skip it and get to the part that was important:

"Humans have called those who can create and destroy the world at will as God."

Apparently, Haruhi was a deity, or at least that was the belief of those in Koizumi's organization. I didn't agree, but I respected Koizumi's right to believe in his odd religion. But, like I said, I didn't agree. In fact, I was more prepared to believe that the universe was created by some inebriated being made out of spaghetti.

"The fate of the world could very well rest in your hands. Therefore, you need to be careful not to let Suzumiya-san feel any despair for this world. That said, it is imperative that you rejoin Suzumiya-san's club."

"No."

Upon hearing my unexpected answer, Koizumi's smile stiffened.

I placed the empty coffee cup back on the table a stared at it for a moment before speaking. "There are people in this world who are malicious," I continued, explaining. "I'm not saying that one should be mean in response, but the best thing to do is—stay away from the malicious people." I looked up at Koizumi's face. "Do you understand?"

Koizumi's smile was back to its normal intensity. "May I assume, then, that you are committed to this course of action?"

I nodded.

"I see." Without additional words, Koizumi rose from his chair.

"Wait. One thing—" I held up a hand as Koizumi paused. "Nagato and Asahina are—unusual, too, right?"

Koizumi nodded. "That is correct."

I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I said it anyway. "Does that make me the sole outsider?"

"Not quite. For us, you're a mysterious presence. I've done quite a lot of background checks on you, I hope you don't mind. And I can assure you, you are just a normal human being without any special powers."

Koizumi left me alone in the cafeteria with my thoughts.

In the end, then, they didn't know. For some reason, I couldn't help but smile at that realization.

* * *

"I've grown tired of having to observe a changeless environment. That's why..."

The room abruptly darkened. The windows were suddenly gone.

A voice screamed inside my body. I felt almost unbearably tense, as if there was a spring coiled tightly inside me.

"I have to kill you, and see what sort of reaction Suzumiya Haruhi would have."

In that instant, Asakura struck with her right hand.

I could see the object in her hand as it was coming towards me. It was a knife. I could see every detail of it, from its black handle to the sharpened metal point.

I dodged. No, that wasn't right at all—

The spring inside me exploded, and I jumped backwards before the knife was halfway to my neck.

Some part of me, repressed, understood the situation and explained it to the remainder of my consciousness. This girl was trying to kill me. I accepted this as fact before another millisecond had passed.

I understood, didn't I? Because this had happened before—

Another person in my place might have tried to convince himself that Asakura was only playing some strange prank, but I accepted the fact of her intentions immediately.

Looking at the situation so calmly, it almost felt like it was a different person entirely controlling my body.

Asakura wasn't human. Some innate sixth sense suddenly spoke, informing me of this fact. In response, a red haze began to settle over my vision.

"A—Asakura," I said before my loss of control became almost complete. "Stop this—right now."

She smiled, the same smile I had seen a hundred times before. "You don't like dying? You don't want to die? The death of organic entities means nothing to me."

A moment.

Something clattered on the ground as a thousand black lines flowed into my vision.

To my side, a pencil rested on a desk, forgotten by some student. It wasn't the preferred tool to use in the sort of situation I was in, but I had no other choice.

I moved too obviously, though. Asakura could see clearly that I refused to die without fighting. "I should've done this from the beginning," she said.

No sooner had she spoken than something seemed to appear, flying through the air at me. It was entirely invisible. Any other person would have found dodging it to be an impossibility.

I didn't need to dodge, though.

My "knife" whistled through the air. Even though it was invisible, it still existed, and if it existed, I could cut it. Thin flakes of something touched me, too small to do anything to me.

I sprang forwards through them—

I was faster than Asakura. But Asakura was quick, too. I wanted to slice her in half, along the line that ran across her chest, but she moved to the side.

In the end, I only cut off her arm.

The limb fell to the floor, her knife still grasped tightly in the hand. Blood spiraled through the air from Asakura's shoulder. Her head swiveled slowly to gaze dully at the space where her missing limb had been.

"Ha...?" A confused, hesitant laugh slipped out of Asakura's grinning mouth.

Silence, as the blood continued to pour out of Asakura's shoulder.

"E—even processing the information for so long—" Her voice sounded as if she were fighting not to break into wild laughter. "This is—a possibility I never predicted!"

And then she did laugh, wild, mad laughter, as if she wasn't really standing there, blood forming a pool under her feet.

"Ha, ha ha—a mere organic entity, able to hurt me like this—I'm impressed, Kyon-kun!"

That nickname again. My skull pounded. "My name—isn't—'Kyon,'" I forced through clenched teeth.

Asakura went on, as if ignoring me. "Are you aware that no portion of your data indicates the ability to—to—ha ha ha ha!" Her face scared me. In any other situation, she would have looked beautiful, but—

"You—you're an impossible being, Kyon-kun—Shiki-kun! So—that settles it, then!"

And, just like that, the lights came back.

The setting sun shined through the windows.

I looked at Asakura. She stood there, her hands folded together in front of her—both hands, even the one that shouldn't have been there.

There wasn't even a speck of blood. Not on her, or on the floor of the classroom.

And—the lines were gone. Bringing my hand up to my face, I touched my glasses.

Truly, everything was back to the way it had been when I had entered the classroom.

Asakura was no longer laughing, but her voice still retained the sound of eager excitement. "This data merits further studying, Shiki-kun. Only by monitoring you do I stand the chance of coming to an answer."

Her sudden change in attitude confused me, but she wasn't done yet.

"So—" She clapped her hands together happily, then suddenly moved forward—

And suddenly, her arm was there, hanging loosely off my shoulders.

Her face suddenly filled my entire vision.

I could feel her breath, soft and hot against my cheek.

A part of me, quickly dying, screamed out that she was an enemy—she had been trying to kill me—this was the perfect time to—

It was smothered by another part of me that noted how Asakura was pressed against the side of body. And how she was—warm. And how being held by a girl was kind of comfortable, and Asakura had somehow changed everything back so I didn't have the pencil anymore anyway, and—

The two parts of my brain that were battling each other struck simultaneously, resulting in a stalemate, and I decided as much as I could that finding out why was much more important—

"Asakura?" I asked as loud as I could, which was about a whisper.

And she turned her head, so her lips only barely touched my ear.

"I'm going to have to become your girlfriend, Shiki-kun."

My brain refused to process the information-but only for a second.

" _What?!_ "

...And that was how all the trouble began.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for what you have just read.


End file.
